E-Books - An Update

I've left this update a week since my last as it really has gone a bit flat regarding downloads from FifoBooks. The sales so far are:

The Worst of All Possible Places 19 downloads
Their Own Mad Demons 19 downloads
Sendings has increased by 2 to 5 downloads. It's nice to see that this has actually increased, albeit only slightly.

If anyone, who has read either The Worst of All Possible Places or Sendings, would like to put a review of them on Amazon I would be eternally grateful. The links to Amazon are:

The Worst of All Possible Places

Sendings

After Nightfall - reprinted in The Zombie Archives

I mentioned earlier that I was contacted by editor, Otto Penzler, who wanted to reprint After Nightfall in The Zombie Archives (Vintage Books/Random House). I was very pleased a couple of weeks ago to receive back, not only a copy of my contract, but payment in full ($250) even though the book isn't out till next year. That's a unique experience for me over the past few years. Too often, even though I have been promised payment, that somehow has never seemed to arrive. I suppose I should get tougher about this. Steve Tem, on the HWA members board, complained openly about one publisher who failed to live up to their obligations. It happens. It shouldn't, but it does. I could understand if a publisher was going under, but when they're not, when they are bringing out further books or further issues of their magazine, there is no excuse for this.
I think from now on I'll just have to have a policy of nil tolerance on this issue.

Into the Dark - novel

Now that I have finished what I think is the final rewrite on this novel I am left with the problem of what to do with it. Should I try sending it off to publishers, even though past experience has shown I can expect to wait up to 12 months or more for an answer, usually no thanks. Or go the quicker but, perhaps, ultimately less satisfying route of putting it online as another ebook, like Goblin Mire or Sendings - except I think this is a much better novel than either of them. It's a problem. The trouble with me is that I would much rather get on with whatever else I get stuck into writing next than go around trying to market what I have already finished, especially when it is so frustrating - and can sometimes impair my ability to get on with writing new stuff. It would be great if I had an agent to do all that for me, but getting an agent these days is, from what I can gather, even more difficult than getting a publisher. I suppose there is no need to make a hasty decision, I have still to finish either George and Glenda or Lucilla. And do a final rewrite on The Return.
One of the worst things about trying to get stuff published are the long delays. I have had a collection of short stories, The Lurkers in the Abyss, in the pipeline with Midnight House for years now, yet that seems little nearer actualling getting published than ever. I have had interest expressed in a second collection of my stories from a British small press publisher - a very good one, too - but the final decision over that seems to have come to a halt and months have gone by since I last had any emails about it.
The funny thing is that for a good few years I have been increasingly more convinced that the only printed collections/novels of mine to appear will be postumous. Call this a stupid, illogical conviction if you like, but it's been there a while - and is growing in validity as time goes by. It happens, though, and to much greater writers than me. Take Lovecraft for example.
Oh well, that's that bit of depression off my chest. Onwards and upwards!

Sendings Serialised - Filthy Creations

Filthy Creations will be serialising Sendings from it's next issue, number 6, for those who prefer print versions.

The Girl Next Door - Film

Watched a DVD of The Girl Next Door last night. It was probably one of the most disturbing films I have ever watched. It was based on a novel by the American horror writer, Jack Ketchum, which was itself based on true events. It's the latter that most disturbs me. It's a sickeningly horrific account of a teenage girl's degradation, torture, rape and ultimately her death at the hands of her aunt, her sons and a group of local boys who the aunt seduces into being her accomplices. What perhaps disturbed me most was the worrying suspicion that the film-makers sometimes veered dangerously close to voyeurism, though perhaps that was unavoidable given the subject matter. It's not a film I would care to watch twice.

One of the worst aspects was that the one sympathetic character (other than the victim herself and her crippled younger sister), the film's narrator and one of the boy accomplices (albeit increasingly more unwilling) is helpless much of the time to help the victim.

I have never seen a film like this before. It is true life horror that affected me far more than anything fictitious.

I doubt I will ever wish to read the book it's based on, though this probably does a disservice to Jack Ketchum, I don't know. It's certainly not a film you can watch and forget afterwards.

E-Books - Another Update

I've left this update even longer than the last as it really does seem to have gone a bit flat regarding downloads from FifoBooks. The sales so far are:

The Worst of All Possible Places 19 downloads
Their Own Mad Demons 18 downloads
Sendings is the same as before at 3 downloads

If anyone who has read either The Worst of All Possible Places or Sendings would like to put a review of them on Amazon I would be eternally grateful. The links to Amazon are:

The Worst of All Possible Places

Sendings

Prism - June Issue

It's finally been posted out by the BFS. Seems ages since I sent it to the printers, but at least it'll reach all the members before the end of June! Now I can look forward to getting the September issue put together, which I'll start at the beginning of August, though I already have the cover (a beauty by Bryan Talbot). And John Probert's column. The man is nothing if not eager! And a crazy piece of work it is too about an even crazier film than last time. I really don't know where he gets the energy to watch some of these stinkers not only once but often enough to write an in depth piece about them.

Double Standards?

Mark Samuels recently complained on the Ramsey Campbell Message Board that he was being deliberately excluded from an anthology edited by Joel Lane and Allyson Bird because of a well known clash between Mark and Allyson some time ago over her award-winning collection, Bull Running for Girls. The replies Mark got on the board certainly strike me as strange from someone editing a book against racism (ie discrimination). A certain set of double standards strikes me there.

For the record, I wasn't invited to contribute to this anthology either, though I was asked to mention it in Prism, which I have.

Into the Dark - novel

E-Books - Update

I've left this a few days as it seems to have gone a bit flat regarding downloads from FifoBooks. The sales so far are:
The Worst of All Possible Places now 16 downloads
Their Own Mad Demons now 15 downloads
Sendings is the same as before at 3 downloads

If anyone who has read either The Worst of All Possible Places or Sendings would like to put a review of them on Amazon I would be eternally grateful. The links to Amazon are:

The Worst of All Possible Places

Sendings

E-Books - Update

Yet again, only small increases on two of the books I have on FifoBooks, only the free downloads:

The Worst of All Possible Places now has had 15

Their Own Mad Demons has had 13

Sendings still stands at 3

Hardly dramatic. It will be interesting to compare eventually with the figures I get from Amazon - if, that is, they are any better. At least, though, it costs me nothing.

Beyond - In the Vault of Evil

Kev Demant (demonik), the host of Vault of Evil, one of the very best sites on the web for horror related discussions, etc., has just published an article on The Curse of Beyond. See Beyond Article

E-Books - Update

Some small increases on two of the books I have on FifoBooks, though only the free downloads:

The Worst of All Possible Places now has had 14
Their Own Mad Demons has had 12
Sendings still stands at 3

Still, it's nice to see the first two gradually increasing. At least someone is interested.

I have no idea how things are on Amazon. I think I'll have to wait for them  to send me their report as and when.

E-Books - Update

A bit disappointing today. Only one change: one additional upload for The Worst of All Possible Places, that's all.

Going to watch The Plague of the Zombies to cheer me up. That should do the trick.